My Travel Story

I'm Greer a Third year medical student at the University of Otago. These past five years have been a whirlwind rollercoaster of highs and lows. To read more about me this is a link to my personal blog: http://greerbeartakesonbipolar.blogspot.co.nz. Originally I wanted to spent my summer break doing a studentship (Summer research project) but have decided to go on a Journey to Break the Stigma of Mental Health.

The aim of this Journey is to seek out and observe how other cultures manage mental health issues and what the stigma around it is if any, To be honest until I went through multiple mental illness's I never fully understood the impacts and implications on ones life. I have been told by many professionals that I would never return to Medicine as I was to mentally unwell. It was difficult hearing this as I have had a dream of being a Doctor since I was 5. After taking last year off to recover I am fortunately back at Medical School.

Ideally if there was 40 hours in a day I would spend at least 8 of those hours working in a cafe or a shop to be able to fund my journey independently. However in reality 24 hours a day is just not enough time for full time study and full time work.

I would like to document my findings in a travel blog, (videos clips which I can hopefully turn into a short film or documentary) and publish a book on my personal experiences and what I have found on my journey.

A charity that I am in the midst of setting up is Break the Stigma this is that the very early stages and eventually would like to fund-raise to help individuals access therapy who can not afford it https://www.facebook.com/Break-the-Stigma-17281...designed to increase mental health awareness and also Break the Stigma of mental health, getting people to talk out there own experiences and just talk.

You can help by donating towards my journey which will hopefully help a lot of individuals Break the Stigma